Live updates: Trump and Putin begin Alaska summit on war in Ukraine

The Kremlin shared two clips of Putin and Trump smiling and talking before the two world leaders began their sit-down meeting in Alaska, alongside Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Putin’s foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov.

Russian media outlets also shared images that appeared to show a bemused Putin raising his eyebrows in response to shouted questions from assembled reporters. At one point, Putin cupped his hands around his mouth and appeared to say something, although his voice could not be heard.

While Trump was meeting privately with his top aides and Putin, his political team sent out a fundraising email that said, “I’m meeting with Putin in Alaska!”

“It’s a little chilly,” the fundraising pitch said. “THIS MEETING IS VERY HIGH STAKES for the world.”

It also said, “No one in the world knows how to make deals like me!” and encouraged people to donate, suggesting they start with $10.

It’s because the former secretary of state said she’d nominate Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize herself if he negotiates an end to Russia’s war on Ukraine without Ukraine having to give up territory.

“Well, that was very nice,” Trump said when asked about Clinton’s comment during an in-flight interview with Fox News Channel. “I may have to start liking her again.”

Trump and Clinton were presidential rivals in 2016 and have had a contentious relationship. Trump has also been angling to be awarded the prestigious peace prize.

The full Fox News interview is set to air later Friday.

Interviewed by Bret Baier of Fox News Channel aboard Air Force One as he flew to Alaska, Trump said he’d like to walk away from the meeting with a ceasefire.

He also said he’d like a second meeting on Russia’s war in Ukraine.

“I wouldn’t be thrilled if I didn’t get it,” Trump said of a halt to hostilities between the countries. He said everyone tells him he won’t get a ceasefire until a second meeting.

“So, we’ll see what happens. I’m going to be, I won’t be happy if I walk away without some form of a ceasefire,” he said.

The two leaders’ motorcade made the short drive to a building on the base where they’re expected to meet and hold a news conference later.

Both leaders got into the backseat of Trump’s armored presidential limousine, chatting with each other and smiling as they got situated.

Trump and Putin are riding together in the U.S. president’s official limousine.

President Donald Trump greeted Russian leader Vladimir Putin at an air base in Alaska on Friday as a squadron of U.S. stealth military planes designed during the Cold War in part for use in a possible conflict with the Soviet Union flew overhead.

As Trump and Putin shook hands at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson outside Anchorage, F-22s and B2 bombers soared above. Neither plane entered active service until after the Cold War had ended but their design and development began during the 1970s and 1980s when the U.S.-Soviet rivalry was at its height.

The presence of the planes during the red carpet welcome afforded to Putin by summit host Trump may have been intended to remind the Russian leader of U.S. military might as the pair head in to talks focused on Russia’s war with Ukraine.

Both leaders stood alongside each other, shaking hands again, appearing to exchange words and ignoring shouted questions from reporters on site.

Russian state news agencies Tass and RIA Novosti reported Friday that President Vladimir Putin will use Aurus, a high-end Russian-made limousine, in Alaska.

The agencies posted footage of a black limousine with Russian license plates and a small Russian flag attached to the hood driving around the tarmac.

Putin brought Aurus on foreign trips before, and even gifted one to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un last year.

Russian state news agency RIA Novosti quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying that Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Putin’s foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov will join the Russian leader during his “three-on-three” meeting with Trump, Rubio and Witkoff.

Lavrov and Ushakov took part in the first in-person Russia-US talks in February this year.

Trump has yet to leave Air Force One.

He’s meeting aboard the aircraft with Alaska U.S. Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, as well as Gov. Mike Dunleavy, according to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.

Russian state news agencies RIA Novosti and Tass report that a motorcade with top Russian officials who are part of the delegation has departed to the summit venue.

Putin’s foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov said earlier that those joining the Russian president in Alaska will include himself, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Defense Minister Andrei Belousov, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov, Putin’s envoy for investment and economic cooperation Kirill Dmitriev.

Press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters aboard Air Force One that Trump won’t be meeting Putin alone, as she had previewed earlier in the week, but instead will be joined the secretary of state and his special envoy.

Leavitt said it would be a three-on-three meeting instead of a one-on-one.

His planned lunch meeting with Putin was to include Rubio and Witkoff, along with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles.

Russian state news agency RIA Novosti quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying that Russian President Vladimir Putin will lay flowers at the tomb of Soviet pilots in Alaska after his summit with U.S. President Donald Trump.

An “Alaska 2025″ sign and red carpet are ready on the base tarmac for the leaders’ arrival.

The carpeting is lined on either side with fighter jets, parked at an angle,

The National Guard now assisting law enforcement in Washington, D.C. are under the direct control of President Donald Trump as delegated through Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, the National Guard says.

Trump’s authority is delegated through Hegseth and Secretary of the Army Gen. Leland Blanchard, the commanding officer of the D.C. Guard.

The direct coordination of the Guard’s operations in Washington is being handled by Col. Larry Doan, the leader of the National Guard’s D.C. task force. Doan’s responsibilities include working with the Metropolitan Police Department and other federal agencies working on law enforcement in the district.

Unlike the 50 states, Washington is governed by federal laws including Title 32, which gives the president control over the Guard in the District of Columbia without the need to fully federalize Guard units.

The Trump administration can move ahead with firing the vast majority of the employees at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a panel of judges ruled on Friday. But the decision is being held for seven days while CFPB employees and their legal team file an appeal.

The D.C. Court of Appeals overturned a lower court’s decision, which originally ruled that the White House’s plan to fire roughly 80% of the CFPB’s employees was effectively to “shut down” the CFPB. The court ruled that the employees, who sued in this case, did not have standing to argue the continued existence of the CFPB.

Since President Donald Trump was sworn into office, the CFPB has effectively been inoperable, and its employees have been banned from doing any work with plans to cut the bureau’s employment to a skeleton crew of staff. Earlier courts had ruled that the Trump administration was effectively dismantling the agency without seeking Congress’s approval for doing so.

Voting in favor of the 2-1 decision was Judges Gregory Katsas and Neomi Rao, both Trump appointees during his first term.

The decision is expected to be appealed to the full D.C. Court of Appeals.

In a snippet from an interview aboard Air Force One with Fox News Channel’s Bret Baier posted on X, Trump predicted that his meeting with the Russian president would “work out very well — and if it doesn’t, I’m going to head back home real fast.”

“I would walk, yeah,” he added, after a follow up question from Baier.
Friday afternoon on social media, Trump posted a video clip from a gaggle also aboard the plane, in which he was asked what would make the summit a success.

“I want to see a ceasefire rapidly. I don’t know if it’s going to be today but I’m not going to be happy if it’s not today,” Trump told reporters, as he stood in an aisle of the plane. “I’m in this to stop the killing.”

Russian media showed the foreign minister arriving in Anchorage on Friday wearing a sweater that appeared to have “CCCP” on it — the Russian initials for the Soviet Union.

Putin once famously called the USSR’s 1991 collapse “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century,” and critics have regularly accused him of seeking to restore the Russia-dominated Soviet Union. Putin has rejected these accusations, even though Moscow has sought to maintain or increase its influence on some of the former Soviet states.

Immigrant advocates in Washington held a call Friday to share information about what people are reporting.

Edith Hinson, an attorney for the Washington-based Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, said they are advising immigrants to measure risks if they must get behind the wheel or get a ride with a relative or friend who is a U.S. citizen and not to answer any questions as passengers.

“It’s very unsettling, very troubling that, now moving forward, MPD is free and able to share information regarding everyone they encounter in a traffic stop with ICE,” Hinson said.

Anusce Sanai, associate legal director for the Washington-based immigrant nonprofit Ayuda, said that they are still parsing through the legal aspects of the new policy. Sanai says they have already seen increased police presence in Mount Pleasant, a Salvadoran enclave.

“We are triaging how to advise clients and the community at large. Even with the most anti-immigrant administration, we would always tell our clients that they must call the police, that they should call the police, but now we find ourselves that we have to be very careful on what we advise,” Sanai said.

Russian state news agency RIA Novosti on Friday quoted Kremlin spokesman Peskov as saying that the Putin-Trump talks could take at least 6-7 hours.

Peskov also said that the two leaders will be accompanied by their aides during their one-on-one meeting, and that Russia hopes for the summit to bring about results. He didn’t go into details.

“If Donald Trump negotiates an end to Putin’s war on Ukraine without Ukraine having to cede territory, I’ll nominate him for a Nobel Peace Prize myself,” the former U.S. secretary of State wrote on X.

Trump has already said he believes a peace deal would likely require the swapping of Ukrainian territories by both sides.

Clinton, Trump’s 2016 Democratic opponent, linked to her appearance on the “Raging Moderates” podcast, where she offered Trump some advice: “He is not meeting with a friend. He is meeting with an adversary.”

But Clinton said that if Trump can negotiate a ceasefire, have Russia withdraw from the territory it seized and bring an end to the war without making Ukraine concede territory, she would join the Nobel lobbying.

Trump and his allies have been lobbying for years for him to get the prize.

Trump and Putin are scheduled to meet at 3 p.m. ET, according to the White House.
Following the meeting, he’s expected to depart Anchorage at 9:45 p.m. ET.